DeepFun.com Bernie DeKoven April 2008 USA

In the latest Out-of-the-Box card-(432 cards)-reading, personality-predicting, finger-pointing fun.

There's a die (the Party Cube). You roll the die. That tells you whether you are looking for the most or least likely person in the group who, for example, would join a bow-hunting safari. It says "Party Pooper," so you're looking for the person you think would be least likely to want to join that old bow-hunting safari. At the count of three, everybody points. Since it's you're turn to be the prime pointer (the "host"), you point to the person you think is the Pooper, while at the same time everyone points to the person they think would be the person you would point at. Get it? Not necessarily the "real" person. Just the person they think you would point at. Then everyone who pointed at the same person you pointed to gets points (chip) and gets to give you points (also a chip) ("gets" as in "has to"). Everybody else, the nay-pointers, as it were, gets nothing. And that's the game. And someone else gets to be the host. And the die is rolled. And a card is picked. And people point. And then they laugh.

And that's it, in brief. In sum, Party Pooper, the many-carded game with chips and pointing and laughing, is Major FUN. In a little more depth, I think you should know why this makers suggest that the game be played, yes, by as many as 8 players, in party-like fashion, as long as everyone's at least 12. Physically and emotionally. Because getting pointed at or not, as fun as it can be, is easy to take a little too personally. In fact, there might be people who have been categorized as adults, and yet might actually be prone to taking such playful pointings personally.

And there is an alternate set of rules, actually, that don't involve finger pointing, but rather thumbs-upping or -downing.

But you happen to be the kind of person who plays for fun. And regular-old Party Pooper happens to be just that kind of game, especially with all the pointing. A genuinely fun game. And the people you want to play with are also of that emotional age we consider to be at least 12. And it will be something definitely, deliciously fun, this game of Party Pooper. I promise, or my name is not Major Fun.

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